Jane Wyman

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Birth name Sarah Jane Mayfield
Nationality USA
Birth 5 january 1917 at St. Joseph (USA)
Death 10 september 2007 (at 90 years) at Palm Springs (USA)
Awards Academy Award for Best Actress

Jane Wyman (born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007) was an American singer, dancer, and film/television actress. She began her film career in 1932 and her work in television lasted into 1993. She was a prolific performer for two decades. She received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Johnny Belinda (1948), and was a three time winner of The Golden Globe, she achieved a new level of success as Angela Channing in the 1980s prime time soap opera Falcon Crest.

She was the first wife of Ronald Reagan; they married in 1940 and divorced in 1949.

Biography

Marriages
Wyman married four times.

Myron Martin Futterman
Wyman married Myron Martin Futterman (1900–1965), a dress manufacturer, in New Orleans on June 29, 1937. As Wyman wanted children but Futterman did not, they separated after only three months of marriage and divorced on December 5, 1938.

Ronald Reagan

In 1938, Wyman co-starred with Ronald Reagan in Brother Rat (1938), and its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre, and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather Church, Glendale, California. She and Reagan had three children; Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (1941–2001), their adopted son Michael Edward Reagan (born March 18, 1945), and Christine Reagan (born prematurely on June 26, 1947 and died later the same day). This event soured their marriage irreparably. Wyman stated that their break up was due to a difference in politics (Ronald Reagan was still a Democrat at the time). She filed for divorce in 1948; the divorce was finalized in 1949. Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president to have been divorced; thus Wyman was the first and only former wife of a United States president so far. Although she remained silent during Reagan's political career, she told a newspaper interviewer in 1968 that this was not because she was: bitter or because I don't agree with him politically. I've always been a registered Republican. But it's bad taste to talk about former husbands and former wives, that's all. Also, I don't know a damn thing about politics.

In spite of her divorce she still voted for her former husband in the 1980 and 1984 Presidential elections, according to her former personal assistant.

Fred Karger
Following her divorce from Reagan, Wyman married German-American Hollywood music director and composer Frederick M. "Fred" Karger (1916–1979) on November 1, 1952, at El Montecito Presbyterian Church, Santa Barbara. They separated on November 7, 1954, and were granted an interlocutory divorce decree on December 7, 1954; the divorce was finalized on December 30, 1955. They remarried on March 11, 1961, and Karger divorced her again on March 9, 1965. According to The New York Times report of the divorce, the bandleader charged that the actress "had walked out on him." Wyman had a stepdaughter, Terry, from Karger's first marriage to Patti Sacks.

Wyman, who had converted to Catholicism in 1953, never remarried. She was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California.

Later life
After Falcon Crest ended, Wyman made a guest appearance on the CBS series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and then completely retired from acting, spending her retirement painting and entertaining friends. A recluse, Wyman made only a few public appearances in her last years in part due to suffering from diabetes and arthritis, although she did attend her daughter Maureen's funeral in 2001 after the latter's death from cancer. (Ronald Reagan was unable to attend due to his Alzheimer's disease). She also attended the funeral of her long-time friend Loretta Young in 2000. Wyman broke her silence about her former husband upon his death in 2004, attending his funeral and issuing an official statement that read "America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man."